Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Yesterday my son Ben, age 6, brought me Dan Barker's "Maybe Right, Maybe Wrong" and told me he had read it. I hadn't asked him to. He just found it in his bookcase and started reading, and apparently finished the thing on his own.

I was a bit skeptical since I've never yet known him to read anything that long, so I asked him some questions about it. He remembered the part where the girl had to decide whether to put her cat to sleep. I asked him why she decided to do it. He thought for a few seconds and said "Because of her principles. But it's not like the principal in school."

Then he wanted to read the book to me, and I noticed that he does voices like I do when I read. It's subtle, but in a cartoon scene where a kid and an adult are talking, the kid definitely has a higher voice.

That book, by the way, is signed by Dan Barker: "For Russell and Ben, Freethinking Friends."

37 comments:

Congratulations, if that is the appropriate thing to say. My son turns 2 next month, and I went through a phase a year back where I would think about what books to get him. I wanted books that would help him understand (or help me explain) morality, evolution, etc from a secular standpoint.

Since then I've learned that that will be a way off, but I am still proud of the things Grayson can do at this age.

Anyway, that was a good post. The non-religious family guy is an image that we rarely see in the media or anywhere else, for that matter. It's nice to hear this sort of thing.

I cant even relate, I dont live in a Theocracy, im European, we are educate,d your kind of society is so off the chart here its truly silly really. It must be sad to live in the society you live in, oppressed knowledge, ignorance celebrated...

Thats ace Russell. My little lad has only just mastered walking, but it's usefull hearing about your experiences via this blog and both shows, just to get me thinking about how I approach these kinds of things. Keep sharing mate, it helps!

And do Christians give their children "unbiased" opinions of the Bible? Of course not. Don't attack atheist parents for being open and honest about their atheism to their kids, if you don't attack Christian parents for being just as open and honest about their Christian faith to their kids. For the record, we do not exactly find ourselves challenged by taunts from religious people who openly flaunt hypocritical double standards.

Martin said... And do Christians give their children "unbiased" opinions of the Bible? Of course not. Don't attack atheist parents for being open and honest about their atheism to their kids, if you don't attack Christian parents for being just as open and honest about their Christian faith to their kids. For the record, we do not exactly find ourselves challenged by taunts from religious people who openly flaunt hypocritical double standards.

Anyway, I'm sure Kazim will answer you.

This may shock you but I let my kids decide for themselves. Christianty is a personal choice each person must make. I wasn't attacking Kazim, I was just asking a question because I was curious. Why are you so quick to judge then scream when someone does the same to you? I thought you thinkers were supposed to be open minded? Guess that's the "old" double standard huh?.

Then again, how would you react if I asked my kid how the hero(es) of certain stories compared to the hero called God? Would you react the same way?

It's up to you how and what you teach your kids. I was just asking how he would handle it. It's hard to start a dialoge with most atheist becuase you start attacking from the start. I promise not to whack you over the head with my Bible. If I feel the situation calls for a Biblical view point I'll share it. I don't try to shove my faith down your throat but I do give honest answers if ask. Also I don't mind when I get honest answers back.

Everybody but me seems to know what Mark is asking already. Curt says he wouldn't let his kids read the Bible. I would and have. As it happens, I did a show two weeks ago where the topic of atheist parenting came up several times, so you can find out a lot about what I think by checking that show out in the archive. However, brief recap:

I DO heavily influence my son in the way I think. We all influence our kids. However, I never come right out and tell him that I know the truth about metaphysical things, because no one really does. All I tell him is that some people believe the things in the book, but I don't, and why. But I can't tell him what to think, and don't try to.

Ben has gone through an agnostic phase lately, kind of wondering if heaven might be real. I didn't tell him it's not, I asked him why he thinks that and helped him explore the concepts, but haven't told him he's not allowed to believe that.

I think kids are naturally somewhat skeptical, but in most cases they're given the impression that it's wrong to be skeptical of their religion.

I want to teach my kids *how* to think, not what to think, so I haven't told them my views of religion, but I do demonstrate a fascination with learning about the world and being skeptical.

My son asked me three or four years ago, when he would have been eight or nine, just randomly while we were walking, how people know about heaven. I was pretty proud of him for having that thought.

Just the other night (he's 12 now), he was holding a small New Testament that he owns, the subject of what's in it was brought up, I told him that the four books called gospels at the beginning were about Jesus's life, and that almost all the rest of it was written by Paul, who incidentally, never met Jesus. My son asked how Paul then knew about him, and I told him that Paul had a dream that Jesus appeared to him in. My son then opened the book, pulled back the first four books, fanned the remainder at me and with an incredulous tone said "He got all this - from a dream?!?

Mark: I wasn't attacking Kazim, I was just asking a question because I was curious. Why are you so quick to judge then scream when someone does the same to you?

My response was to your reply to AtheistUnderMask, which seemed kind of judgmental and defensive to me too.

I would be very impressed to know you don't try to influence your kids' choices regarding whether or not to follow your religion. Most Christian parents -- and I grew up in a Christian family and community -- don't hesistate to throw their kids right into the deep end when it comes to their religious upbringing.

Maybe the other guys should have refrained from answering a question you posed to Kazim in the first place. But that's kind of the hazard you run into when you post questions on public forums like this one.

Sorry if you felt I bit your head off. I for one don't seek to get off on the wrong foot with anyone here, including theists, so feel free to ask more questions. We're not really unfriendly (though we are passionate about expressing our opinions).

Hence why I said "that complaint"--the particular matter of the New Testament's authorship. I'm not familiar enough with the Pauline epistles to know the ins and outs of their content or its probable origins. While I'm aware that Paul's contact with Christ comes from a vision (read: dream), I'm not sure where exactly his discussions of the various laws and expectations regarding Christians would come from. What was Paul's role, exactly, in the emerging church at the time? How much did he supposedly learn from his Jesus-ridden dream? How much came from his alleged contact with James, brother of Jesus? Where else was he getting his material?

In fact, thinking about the matter as a result of this thread has piqued my curiosity, and I think I'll try to slog through the NT again in the near future.

PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.

This blog encourages believers who disagree with us to comment. However, anonymous comments are disallowed to weed out cowardly flamers who hide behind anonymity. Commenters will only be banned when they've demonstrated they're nothing more than trolls whose behavior is intentionally offensive to the blog's readership.

Email policy

All emails sent to the program at the tv[at]atheist-community[dot]org address become the property of the ACA, and the desire for a reply is assumed. Note that this reply could take the form of a public response on the show or here on the blog. In those cases, we will never include the correspondent's address, but will include names unless we deem it inappropriate. If you absolutely do not wish for us to address your email publicly, please include a note to that effect (like "private response only" or "not for publication" or "if you post this on the blog please don't use my name") somewhere in the letter.

Google Analytics script

Subscribe To

AE and Related Sites

PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.The Atheist Experience is a weekly live call-in television show sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin. This independently-run blog (not sponsored by the ACA) features contributions from current and former hosts and co-hosts of the show.